"Bluster" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... square to take On those that are, Reuenge: Crimes, like Lands Are not inherited, then deere Countryman, Bring in thy rankes, but leaue without thy rage, Spare thy Athenian Cradle, and those Kin Which in the bluster of thy wrath must fall With those that haue offended, like a Shepheard, Approach the Fold, and cull th' infected ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... "Your bluster won't serve you, sirrah. If you be a gentleman, which you make incredible, you may proceed in order and I'll consider if I may do you ...
— The Highwayman • H.C. Bailey
... bear- The realms of ocean and the fields of air Are mine, not his. By fatal lot to me The liquid empire fell, and trident of the sea. His pow'r to hollow caverns is confin'd: There let him reign, the jailer of the wind, With hoarse commands his breathing subjects call, And boast and bluster in his empty hall." He spoke; and, while he spoke, he smooth'd the sea, Dispell'd the darkness, and restor'd the day. Cymothoe, Triton, and the sea-green train Of beauteous nymphs, the daughters of the main, Clear from ...
— The Aeneid • Virgil
... fortnight Colonel Faversham had felt almost a boy again. The spring was in his blood! Moreover, he flattered himself that he had not begun to look old! Still, he was sensitive lest Carrissima should fancy he was making an ass of himself, and, as usual at such times, he began to bluster. ...
— Enter Bridget • Thomas Cobb
... live half a lifetime with well-bred dogs without a chance to see the demon which we have buried in their breasts, as we have in our own, beneath a host of civilizing influences. It is rare indeed in our day that a dog, unless insane, will bite a human being. The most of their assaults are pure bluster, mere pretence of fury, as is shown by the fact that if, carried away by their pretence, they are led to use their teeth, it is usually a mere sham assault, having no semblance of the ...
— Domesticated Animals - Their Relation to Man and to his Advancement in Civilization • Nathaniel Southgate Shaler
... lank man with that sort of persuasiveness which can turn instantly into bluster, "all this is pure foolishness, you know. We're here to stay. We've bought this place, and some other land to go with it, and we expect to stay right here and make a living. It happens that we expect to make a living off of sheep. Now, we don't want to start in by quarreling with our ...
— Flying U Ranch • B. M. Bower
... that over- loyalty to betray the North. "We have worked for them, and fought for them, and paid for them," says the North. "By our labor we have raised their indolence to a par with our energy. While we have worked like men, we have allowed them to talk and bluster. We have warmed them in our bosom, and now they turn against us and sting us. The world sees that this is so. England, above all, must see it, and, seeing it, should speak out her true opinion." The North is ...
— Volume 1 • Anthony Trollope
... been shown the stubbornness of a determination to be content with nothing else, for which I was not prepared by the general testimony of officials who had been longer in the country, and who professed to believe that the opposition of the Boers was mere bluster, and that they had not the courage of their professed opinions.... I feel assured that the majority of the Committee felt very deeply what they believed to be a great national wrong.... But my conviction is that the real malcontents are far from being a majority of the whole white ...
— The Transvaal from Within - A Private Record of Public Affairs • J. P. Fitzpatrick
... restriction produced a violent agitation among the members from the slaveholding states, and it has been communicated to the states themselves, and to the territory of Missouri. The slave-drivers, as usual, whenever this topic is brought up, bluster and bully, talk of the white slaves of the Eastern States, and the dissolution of the Union, and of oceans of blood; and the Northern men, as usual, pocket all this hectoring, sit down in quiet, and submit to the slave-scourging republicanism ...
— Memoir of the Life of John Quincy Adams. • Josiah Quincy
... scandal, and I knew that so astute a villain would see that our hands were tied in the matter. I went and saw him. At first, of course, he denied everything. But when I gave him every particular that had occurred, he tried to bluster and took down a life-preserver from the wall. I knew my man, however, and I clapped a pistol to his head before he could strike. Then he became a little more reasonable. I told him that we would give him a price for the stones he held—1000 pounds apiece. That brought ...
— The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
... the Lords thought that the threats used against them in the course of the election meant nothing and were only a kind of bluster to get the Budget passed, they were grievously mistaken. It must have been hard for them to realize that Lloyd George meant all the presumptuous things he said. He was never more in earnest. A cut-and-dried plan had been arranged between him and Mr. Asquith ...
— Lloyd George - The Man and His Story • Frank Dilnot
... over with moss or grass, and other objects usually shadowed dimly in the background of the picture. It is these quiet hamlets and houses in the still depths of the country, away from the noise and bluster of railway life and motion, that best represent and perpetuate the primeval characteristics of a nation. These the American traveller will find invested with all the old charm with which his fancy clothed ...
— A Walk from London to John O'Groat's • Elihu Burritt
... saved England from the indelible disgrace of a second and more gratuitous Crimea. But it was not only in Eastern Europe that his saving influence was felt. In Africa and India, and wherever British honor was involved, he was the resolute and unsparing enemy of that odious system of bluster and swagger and might against right, on which Lord Beaconsfield and his colleagues bestowed the tawdry nickname ...
— The Grand Old Man • Richard B. Cook
... sprang to his feet and began to bluster considerably in Portuguese; but poor Barney seemed awfully crest-fallen, arid the deep concern which wrinkled his face, and the genuine regret that sounded in the tones of his voice, at length soothed the indignant Brazilian, who frowned gravely, and waving his hand, as if to signify that Barney ...
— Martin Rattler • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... dismounted and started forward, only to stop short. A scream had come to them, faint in the bluster of the storm, the racking scream of a woman in a tempest of anger. Suddenly the light seemed to bob about in the old house; it showed first at one window—then another—as though some one were running from room to room. Once two gaunt shadows stood forth—of a crouching man and a woman, one ...
— The Cross-Cut • Courtney Ryley Cooper
... possess the royal prerogative of inspiring men with an extraordinary devotion. There was something to be said for the cause which could send a man like Balmerino so gallantly to his death with such a brave piece of soldierly bluster upon his dying lips. ...
— A History of the Four Georges, Volume II (of 4) • Justin McCarthy
... with brag, bluster, pomposity, cheap wit, and insincerity, served him as a magnificent foil. Never again were wind and tide so in ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 7 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Orators • Elbert Hubbard
... natural, sometimes lost patience with the old woman, who retreated to her bed to weep. He would bluster about and ask if they were simpletons, to amuse people with their disagreements, and finally induced them to kiss and be ...
— L'Assommoir • Emile Zola
... when the face of the ocean was black, and overcast, that some of them would grow moody, and chose to sit apart. On the contrary, it only proves the thing which I maintain. For even on shore, there are many people naturally gay and light-hearted, who, whenever the autumnal wind begins to bluster round the corners, and roar along the chimney-stacks, straight becomes cross, petulant, and irritable. What is more mellow than fine old ale? Yet thunder will sour the best ...
— White Jacket - or, the World on a Man-of-War • Herman Melville
... I should bluster; much I'm like to make of that. Better comfort have I found in singing ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various
... him! Besides," he added, with cowardly cunning, "they are going to do the same thing in Lorient, too—and everywhere—in Paris, in Bordeaux, in Marseilles—even in Quimperle! And when all these cities are flying the red flag it won't be comfortable for cities that fly the tricolor." He began to bluster. "I'm mayor of Paradise, and I won't be bullied! You get out of here with your circus and your foolish elephants! I haven't any gendarmes just now to drive you out, but you had better start, ...
— The Maids of Paradise • Robert W. (Robert William) Chambers
... to "some sort of Reform" (As we all must, God help us! with very wry faces;) And loud as he likes let him bluster and storm About Corporate Rights, so he'll only ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... first is in good, but not in bad. My second is in sane, but not in mad. My third is in rooster, not in fowl. My fourth is in hawk, but not in owl. My fifth is in plant, but not in flower. My sixth is in rain, but not in shower. My seventh is in bluster, not in rant. My eighth is in emmet, not in ant. My whole is the ...
— Harper's Young People, August 17, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... as far back as 1860 passed every week on its northward way up along the coast of Norway, was of a very sociable turn of mind. It ran with much shrieking and needless bluster in and out the calm, winding fjords, paid unceremonious little visits in every out-of-the-way nook and bay, dropped now and then a black heap of coal into the shining water, and sent thick volleys of smoke and shrill little echoes careering ...
— Tales From Two Hemispheres • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... no longer be quieted. Through all the rhetoric, sophistry, and bluster of the conspirators he saw the diminishing resources of the Government and the rising power of the insurrection. With a last bold effort to rouse the President from his lethargy, he demanded, in the Cabinet meeting of the 13th, that the forts should be strengthened. But he was powerless ...
— Abraham Lincoln, A History, Volume 2 • John George Nicolay and John Hay
... be his consciousness of strength. The small black eye of Colbert, dilated by envy, and the limpid eye of Louis XIV., inflamed by anger, signalled some pressing danger. Courtiers are, with regard to court rumors, like old soldiers, who distinguish through the blasts of wind and bluster of leaves the sound of the distant steps of an armed troop. They can, after having listened, tell pretty nearly how many men are marching, how many arms resound, how many cannons roll. Fouquet had then only to interrogate the silence which his arrival had produced; he found it big with menacing ...
— Ten Years Later - Chapters 1-104 • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... Autumn half the world's asleep, And half the wakeful world looks pinched and pale; For dampness now, not freshness, rides the gale; And cold and colorless comes ashore the deep With tides that bluster or with tides that creep; Now veiled uncouthness wears an uncouth veil Of fog, not sultry haze; and blight and bale Have done their worst, and leaves rot on the heap. So late in Autumn one forgets the Spring, Forgets the Summer with its opulence, The callow ...
— Poems • Christina G. Rossetti
... this unseemly bluster?" he began. . . . "Your lordships' pardon—I will open instantly," and hurried to ...
— Beatrix of Clare • John Reed Scott
... overwhelmed with jibes; he would rail away from his pulpit against monks in general. They choked with rage at his sermons. Proud and stately, he went along the streets of Loudun like a Father of the Church; but by night he would steal, with less of bluster, down the byeways and ...
— La Sorciere: The Witch of the Middle Ages • Jules Michelet
... swelling." So he indulged in a critical Donnybrook; but after hitting out and about at the Essay for three months he left it much as he found it.(19) He could not get to close quarters with Farmer's scholarship. His bluster compares ill with Farmer's gentler manner, and in some passages the quiet humour has proved too subtle for his animosity. There was more impartiality in the judgment of Johnson: "Dr. Farmer, you have done that which was never done before; that is, you have ...
— Eighteenth Century Essays on Shakespeare • D. Nichol Smith
... the north winds their forces muster, And ruin rides high on the storm, All calm, in the midst of their bluster, He stands with his forehead enorm. When block on block, With thundering shock, Comes hurtled confusedly down, No whit recks he, But laughs to shake free The dust from his old ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... which did not bring back Knowles, with his unwieldy heat and bluster. He found a flavor and meaning in the least of these hints of mine, gloating over the largess given and received in the world, for which money had no value. His bones used to straighten, and his eye ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 103, May, 1866 • Various
... "scandalous heretic" to look about them. If it were a forgery, which is highly probable, it was ingeniously imagined, and did the work of truth. The revolutionary party, being in a small minority in the assembly, were advised by their leaders to bow before the storm. They did so, and the bluster of the reactionary party grew louder as they marked the apparent discomfiture of their foes. They openly asserted that the men who were clamoring for privileges should obtain nothing but halters. The buried charters should never be resuscitated; but the spirit of the dead Emperor, ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... gale and bluster, sleet and storm, in almost every section of our broad domain,—and March at Warrener was to the full as blustering and conscienceless as in New England. There were a few days of sunshine during the first ...
— The Deserter • Charles King
... language are leapt, but truth is unconsciously set at nought. We always allow for the words of some persons, for with them a scratch is a wound; a wind, a hurricane; one dollar, a thousand; and all they do in life, a big, big bluster. The only way to bring back English to a state of purity—for it has been outraged by slang, imitation, technical expressions, a straining after long words, and a regular system of exaggeration—is to speak simple words, using ...
— Hold Up Your Heads, Girls! • Annie H. Ryder
... Government's intention to take care that it should be carried out. Yet you have forced yourself in here I give you till to-morrow morning to be clear of these territories." Mr. McDougall's lip began to hang a little low. The calm, even polite, tone of the spokesman of the party had impressed him more than bluster or rage. With the next morning came the same party. They made no noise, but quietly taking the horses of the Governor's party by the head, turned them around, and packed the whole of them back. In this way, and without so much as a loud word, was ...
— The Story of Louis Riel: The Rebel Chief • Joseph Edmund Collins
... politics. James Russell Lowell used dialect for dynamite to blow the front off hypocrisy or to shatter the cotton commercialism in which the New England conscience was encysted. Robert H. Newell, mirth-maker and mystic, satirized military ignorance and pinchbeck bluster to an immortality of contempt. Bret Harte in verse and story touched the parallels of tragedy and of comedy, of pathos, of bathos, and of humor, which love of life and lust of gold opened up amid the unapprehended grandeurs and the coveted treasures of primeval nature. Charles ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol II, After-Dinner Speeches E-O • Various
... held a foot of land if anybody is a mind to contest your claims. I've filed a contest on this eighty, here, and I'm going to hold it. Let that soak into your minds. I don't want any trouble—I'm even willing to take a good deal in the way of bluster, rather than have trouble. But I'm going to stay. See?" He waved his pipe in a gesture of finality and continued to smoke and to watch them impersonally, leaning against the door in that lounging negligence which is so irritating to ...
— The Flying U's Last Stand • B. M. Bower
... feeling of sharp practice toward himself—nay, because of it; it was impossible to use the weapon that a former kindness had placed in his hand. He looked at Leverich now with an expression which the latter quieted himself to meet. This was a situation, not for bluster and rage, but ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol 31, No 2, June 1908 • Various
... too was going to Oxford, we agreed to join company, and fell into conversation. He asked me my errand and I replied, truly enough, I went to visit a gentleman at Oxford. He told me, with not a little bluster, he too went to wait upon a gentleman at Oxford, but he guessed the varlet would get little ...
— Sir Ludar - A Story of the Days of the Great Queen Bess • Talbot Baines Reed
... don't bluster, my boy. They are to meet at Montgomery, Alabama, on February fourth. They'll organize the Cotton States into a Southern Confederacy. If they can win Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee and Arkansas, they may gobble Maryland, Kentucky, and Missouri—all Slave States. If ...
— The Victim - A romance of the Real Jefferson Davis • Thomas Dixon
... is the night—the night; Against thy door drifts up the silent snow, Blocking thy threshold: 'Fall' thou sayest, 'fall, fall Cold snow, and lie and be trod underfoot. Am not I fallen? wake up and pipe, O wind, Dull wind, and heat and bluster at my door: Merciful wind, sing me a hoarse rough song, For there is other music made to-night That I would fain not hear. Wake, thou still sea, Heavily plunge. Shoot on, white waterfall. O, I could ...
— Poems by Jean Ingelow, In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Jean Ingelow
... volcano itself is harmless enough. It smokes unpleasantly now and then, splutters and rumbles as if about to obliterate all creation, but for all its bluster it only manages to spill a trickle or two of fresh lava down its sides—just tamely subsides after deluging Leavitt with a shower of cinders and ashes. But Leavitt won't leave it alone. He goes poking into the very crater, half strangling himself in its poisonous fumes, scorching the shoes ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1920 • Various
... To reproach contemptuously, and in a hectoring manner; to bluster, to abuse, and to insult noisily. Shakspeare makes mine host of the Garter dub Falstaff ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth
... roaring battle. Hancock had taken twenty guns with their horses, and about thirty battle flags. It was a tremendous capture, if he could hold his ground. No officer of the Union army ever showed to better advantage. The world may well forgive the touch of vanity and bluster in the undaunted Hancock, as he sent this despatch to Grant: "I have used up Johnson and am going into Hill." He found, however, that he should have terrible work even to keep the ...
— Notable Events of the Nineteenth Century - Great Deeds of Men and Nations and the Progress of the World • Various
... not much concerned. I was angry; I'll admit that. But I didna let him fash me. I just made up my mind that if I was no allowed to sing I'd have something to say to that basso before the evening was oot. And I looked at him, and listened to him bluster, and thought maybe I'd have a bit to do wi' him as well. I'm a wee man and a', but I'm awfu' strong from the work I did in the pit, and I'm ...
— Between You and Me • Sir Harry Lauder
... brook to bed, and threw a great mantle of snow over him; and the brook that had romped and prattled all the summer and told pretty tales to the grass and flowers,—the brook went to sleep too. With all his fierceness and bluster, the storm-king was very kind; he did not awaken the old oak-tree and the slumbering flowers. The little vine lay under the fleecy snow against the old stone wall and slept peacefully, and so did the violet and the daisy. Only the wicked old thistle thrashed about ...
— A Little Book of Profitable Tales • Eugene Field
... he, "begin by proclaiming yourself the purest, the most disinterested of living men, and end by intimating that you are the bravest;" and then with the charming inconsistency of the dreamer he would add: "If there be anything on this earth that I despise it is bluster." ...
— Marse Henry, Complete - An Autobiography • Henry Watterson
... "Why, Brookes," he said, "you seem to think forever of these men showing fight. You don't know them as I know them. They have a deal of bluster and make a deal of noise, but when you seize them and hold them with a strong hand, there's naught of fight left in them. 'Tis like enough there'll not be so much as a musket fired to-day. I've had to do with 'em often enough before to ...
— Howard Pyle's Book of Pirates • Howard Pyle
... "who's afraid of a hunchback's bluster? I dare say he wanted the handling of the ...
— Run to Earth - A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... appetites: for ill successe faileth not in a beginning, the grounde whereof abhorring reason, is planted and layed vppon the sandie foundacion of pleasure, which is shaken and ouerthrowen, by the least winde and tempest that Fortune can bluster against such building. ...
— The Palace of Pleasure, Volume 1 • William Painter
... here Which first will take the gear From off this cavalier. Begin, and shut away The brightness of my ray." "Enough." Our blower, on the bet, Swelled out his pursy form With all the stuff for storm— The thunder, hail, and drenching wet, And all the fury he could muster; Then, with a very demon's bluster, He whistled, whirled, and splashed, And down the torrents dashed, Full many a roof uptearing He never did before, Full many a vessel bearing To wreck upon the shore— And all to doff a single cloak. But vain the furious stroke; The traveller ...
— The Talking Beasts • Various
... not fume and bluster. It holds firmly and steadily on its way, and wins by force of its resistless ...
— Insights and Heresies Pertaining to the Evolution of the Soul • Anna Bishop Scofield
... bluster, General De Wet's surrender was a particularly tame affair. Said the captive to the captor: "I seem to know you — are you not Jordaan?" "Yes, General," replied the captor. "I saw you at Vereeniging where we made peace." "Very well," rejoined the captive, "I must congratulate you ...
— Native Life in South Africa, Before and Since • Solomon Tshekisho Plaatje
... that fate was against him, and that any further hostility toward the shadow was only a tempting of Providence. He lost his health, spirits, and everything but his courage. His countenance became pale and peaceful-looking; the bluster departed from him; his body shrank up like a withered parsnip. Thrice was he compelled to take in his clothes, and thrice did he ascertain that much of his time would be necessarily spent in pursuing his retreating person through ...
— Stories by English Authors: Ireland • Various
... "No, no, Jack, bluster won't do with me. I was an officer in Chicago before ever I came to this darned coal bunker, and I know a Chicago crook when ...
— The Valley of Fear • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
... refused to tell them, and then they began to threaten and bluster. I was beginning to get frightened, but I made up my mind I wouldn't give in to them. And then—well, you came along, and I guess I never was so glad to see you, Jack! But, of course, they really did me no harm. How did it happen that you ...
— Jack of the Pony Express • Frank V. Webster
... here, Bluster in thy proper sphere; Howl along the naked plain; There exert they joyless reign. Triumph o'er the wither'd flow'r, The leafless shrub, the ruin'd bower; But our cottage come not near, Other Springs inhabit here, Other sunshine decks our board Than they niggard skies afford. Gloomy Winter, hence ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 183, April 30, 1853 • Various
... dropped back into his chair with the utmost complacency. This was not the kind of man with whom mere bluster counted. ...
— The Diamond Master • Jacques Futrelle
... to cover shame wi' bitter words, Tam Lorrigan. 'Tis the way of ye to bluster and bully until the neighbors all are affrighted to face ye and ...
— Rim o' the World • B. M. Bower
... cherry! O sweeter than the berry! O nymph more bright Than moonshine night, Like kidlings blithe and merry! Ripe as the melting luster; Yet hard to tame As raging flame, And fierce as storms that bluster! ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 2 (of 4) • Various
... I have, Punch," said Pen, laughing, as he nursed his leg, which reminded him of his wound from time to time. "But I don't believe it. It's only bluster and brag, of which I think our fellows ought to be ashamed. Why, you've more than once seen the French soldiers ...
— !Tention - A Story of Boy-Life during the Peninsular War • George Manville Fenn
... to confront your enemies," he said; "that is not enough; nor is it that I would have you bluster at them, nor take arms against them; you will not have to do that if, when they come at you, you do not turn one inch aside, but with an assured heart, with good nature, not noisily, and with steadfastness, you keep on your way. If you can do that, ...
— The Conquest of Canaan • Booth Tarkington
... martial defenders, seriously entered into the military movements, as they saw in the exercise of the war power the long desired panacea for the faults of slavery. Those who had jeered at the Southern threats of disunion as empty bluster, and at the Northern conservatives as cowardly doughfaces, became zealous Union men, although it must be confessed that very few of them took their lives in their hands and actually went to the front. The raising of troops went forward with a bound, ...
— Perley's Reminiscences, Vol. 1-2 - of Sixty Years in the National Metropolis • Benjamin Perley Poore
... political system. They must first be made manly, before they can be made truly useful. They must first learn to govern themselves, before they can successfully carry forward the work of governing the nation. They must be taught that bluster is not argument, and that to go through the motions of political service does not in the least aid in the promotion of the public welfare. A single service rendered from the heart is often of more value than a whole life of noisy and showy pretense; but again we say that such service ...
— The True Citizen, How To Become One • W. F. Markwick, D. D. and W. A. Smith, A. B.
... bluster in these resolutions, but their meaning was apparent enough, and the city authorities understood it. From that hall, next morning, would march at least five or six thousand determined men, and if ...
— The Great Riots of New York 1712 to 1873 • J.T. Headley
... of a stage-carpenter, and had himself been a young carpenter who had led an irregular life, and been guilty of dishonesty. He behaved at first with much coolness and indifference, jeering at the magistrates. Francis was tried in the month of June for high treason, and sentenced to death, when his bluster ceased, and he fell back in a fainting fit in the arms of ...
— Life of Her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen V.1. • Sarah Tytler
... million rifles. Come now, don't be fools. The Governor alone up there in Montreal has enough men to drive you all into the hills of Maine in a week. You think you've got the start of Colborne? Why, he has known every movement of Papineau and your rebels for the last two months. You can bluster and riot to-day, but look out for to-morrow. I am the only Englishman here among you. Kill me; but watch what your end will be! For every hair of my head there will be one less habitant in this province. You haul down the British flag, and string up your tricolour in this British village ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... experience, a government which relying for its existence on the aid of an external power finds in its very feebleness support for tyranny. Murmurs are already heard of armed resistance. These mutterings, we are told, are nothing but bluster. It is at any rate that sort of "bluster" at which the justice and humanity of a loyal Englishman must take alarm. I have not yet learnt to look without horror on the possibility of civil war, nor to picture to myself without emotion the situation ...
— A Leap in the Dark - A Criticism of the Principles of Home Rule as Illustrated by the - Bill of 1893 • A.V. Dicey
... said again, with a humbleness that seemed strangely gentle after all his bluster and brag, "will you look at this and tell me what ...
— The Boy With the U. S. Fisheries • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... platform at Victoria. What are you going to do about it?" Now you might think that the porter would reply, "Come off it, Mister; you don't kid me like that," or make some other disappointing and impolite remark; but not a bit of it. Bluster is the thing that pays. First of all he will apologise, and then he will fetch the station-master, and he will apologise too, and after a bit they will offer you a special train back to Streatham Common, probably the one the KING ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, July 28th, 1920 • Various
... Villiers had crouched on the ground, half terrified, while his wife towered over him, magnificent in her anger. At the end, however, he recovered himself a little, and began to bluster. ...
— Madame Midas • Fergus Hume
... sudden prosperity. Perhaps few men could have taken such a change without some excitement; probably few men would have become so insane on account of what only changed his fortunes, not himself, or, rather, had so far only changed himself for the worse. All this bluster and talk made no impression on either Mr. Burnet or Mitchell, who waited quietly until Rayner's extravagant delight should have ...
— Littlebourne Lock • F. Bayford Harrison
... Have you read the Kaiser's speeches? If you have not a copy, I advise you to buy it; they will soon be out of print, and you won't have any more of the same sort again. They are full of the clatter and bluster of German militarists—the mailed fist, the shining armour. Poor old mailed fist—its knuckles are getting a little bruised. Poor shining armour—the shine is being knocked out of it. But there is the same swagger and boastfulness ...
— Selected Speeches on British Foreign Policy 1738-1914 • Edgar Jones
... in spite of his position. He seemed to accept his imprisonment as one of the fortunes of war. He didn't threaten or bluster, although he tended to maintain an air of superiority that would have been unbearable in ...
— The Highest Treason • Randall Garrett
... younger man blankly, "what a ridiculous old humbug it is! And how he used to frighten me in the old days with his confounded cavalry bluster! I rather think I will look him up: and I'll dine with him three times a week if he likes. Meanwhile, it's time for me to go and meet old Rainham, and take him round to Brodonowski's. What ...
— A Comedy of Masks - A Novel • Ernest Dowson and Arthur Moore
... you lose her!" Tignonville replied in a voice of triumph. "Ha, ha! I touch you there!" he continued. "You dare not, for my safety is part of the price, and is more to you than it is to myself! You may threaten, M. de Tavannes, you may bluster, and shout and point to the window"—and he mocked, with a disdainful mimicry, the other's gesture—"but my safety is more to you than to me! And 'twill ...
— Count Hannibal - A Romance of the Court of France • Stanley J. Weyman
... under a very alluring curtain of language. It seems to be the most natural thing in the world for the thief and swindler to talk with the greatest apparent earnestness and sincerity and honesty. Pious talk very frequently is the haze in which an avaricious and greedy soul hides itself. Bluff, bluster, and boasting are the sops which the coward throws to his own vanity, while the quietest, sweetest, and gentlest tones often sheath the fierce heart of the born fighter, as a velvet glove is said to clothe a ...
— Analyzing Character • Katherine M. H. Blackford and Arthur Newcomb
... old man, between bluster and whine, "I talked about them chaps to the superintendent of yo' mill, an' you-all said you didn't want none of that size. And one o' yo' men—he was a room boss, I reckon—spoke up right sassy to me—as sassy as Johnnie Consadine herself, and God knows she ain't got no respect ...
— The Power and the Glory • Grace MacGowan Cooke
... group, placed at the edge of the picture after the manner of Leonardo. The woman and child lighten the mass of foliage on the right and make a beautiful pattern. The white town of Castelfranco sings against the threatening sky, the winds bluster through the space, the trees shiver with the coming storm. Here and there leafy boughs are struck in with a slight, crisp touch, in which we can follow readily the ...
— The Venetian School of Painting • Evelyn March Phillipps
... storm, tempest. borrascoso, -a tempestuous, stormy. borrn m. blot, stigma. bosque m. forest, wood, bosk. bote m. thrust. botn m. booty, spoils. bveda f. arch, vault, cavern. bramador, -a roaring, bellowing, raging. bramar roar, rage, bluster, bellow. bramido m. howling, roaring. bravo, -a wild, fierce. bravo, -a brave. bravura f.. bravado, fierceness, ferocity, boasting. brazo m. arm, embrace. breve adj. brief, short. bridn ...
— El Estudiante de Salamanca and Other Selections • George Tyler Northup
... were to be found many Southern refugees, some of whom made a poor return for hospitality by endeavoring to use Canada as a base for border raids. Yet in the smaller towns and in the country sympathy was decidedly on the other side, particularly after the "Herald" had ceased its campaign of bluster and after Lincoln's proclamation had brought the moral issue again to the fore. The fact that a large number of Canadians, popularly set at forty thousand, enlisted in the Northern armies, is to be explained in part by the call of adventure ...
— The Canadian Dominion - A Chronicle of our Northern Neighbor • Oscar D. Skelton
... last few years of worry and bluster across the North Sea we have a little forgotten India in our calculations. As Germany faces round eastward again, as she must do before very long, we shall find India resuming its former central position in our ideas of international politics. With ...
— An Englishman Looks at the World • H. G. Wells
... working in the shelter of huge penthouses. But breaches were no sooner made than repaired; every scaling-party was repulsed; and the defenders derided the Emperor in opprobrious songs. For once in his life he descended to bluster and ferocious inhumanity. He swore that he would give no quarter, he executed captives within sight of the walls, and he suspended his hostages in baskets from the most exposed parts of the siege-towers. Fortunately for his fame he relented, when hunger and the desertion of their master-engineer ...
— Medieval Europe • H. W. C. Davis
... their natures; Anway was hard and composed; Tenterden vicious and truculent; little Domville apologetic and reproachful, and the other two, youths of no particular character, merely self-conscious and inclined to bluster. ...
— The Deaves Affair • Hulbert Footner
... colony, which should buy a tract of land from the natives and engage immediately in otter hunting—somewhere between Cape Mendocino and Drake's Bay. The Spanish have no settlements above San Francisco and are too weak to drive us out. They would rage and bluster and do nothing. Then quietly push forward, building forts and ships. But you have taken hold in the grand manner and will accomplish in ten years what would have taken me fifty. Marry this girl, use your advantage ...
— Rezanov • Gertrude Atherton
... pull out of Rock Creek, after dinner, and in a little while the performance begins. There is nothing of the gentle pattering shower about a rain and wind storm on these elevated plains; it comes on with a blow and a bluster that threatens to take one off his feet. The rain is dashed about in the air by the wild, blustering wind, and comes from all directions at the same time. While you are frantically hanging on to your hat, the wind playfully unbuttons ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens
... man. Women understand these things better than we do. They understand each other, and they seem to have a practical way of accepting human nature as it is which we never learn to apply to our fellowmen. They never bluster as we do, nor expect impossibilities from ...
— With Edged Tools • Henry Seton Merriman
... arms: "Open the door, woman, I know you're in there, and with whom. Just wait, wait!" Instantly, like a libertine stirred by fear of discovery in the open, he recovered his strength and hurled himself madly upon the ventriloquist whose voice continued to bluster outside the room. In this wise he experienced the pleasures of ...
— Against The Grain • Joris-Karl Huysmans
... made, the States government yielded at once, and yielded without bluster. I cannot say I much admired Mr. Seward's long letter. It was full of smart special pleading, and savored strongly, as Mr. Seward's productions always do, of the personal author. Mr. Seward was making an effort to place a great State paper on record, but the ars celare artem ...
— Volume 2 • Anthony Trollope
... however, wanted to see his debtor face to face: this was the heart of his dream. When he came back a second time and was again told that he could not see the Baron, he began to storm and bluster, and insisted that they should at least let him ...
— The Goose Man • Jacob Wassermann
... cease from shaking; Blind are ye, devoid of reason, If its fruit ye would be taking When its blossoms have but burst. Let it ripen to its season, Wind within its branches bluster— Of itself the fruits 'twill muster For ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries: - Masterpieces of German Literature Translated into English, Volume 5. • Various
... then he hesitated and looked up at the shelf. All were dear to him, these thumbed and dingy books; many a time at midnight had they supped with him beside the fire of muttering white-oak coals, and out into the wild bluster of a storm had they driven care and loneliness. But he could not take them all. Painfully he made his selections, nearly filled his bag, leaving barely room for an old satin waistcoat and two shirts; and these he stuffed in hastily. ...
— An Arkansas Planter • Opie Percival Read
... the veiled hostility that met him everywhere, faced Steptoe Service and made his request, that dignitary felt a chill go down his spine. Like Old Pete he felt the man beneath the surface. He met him, however, with bluster and refused all reopening of a matter which he declared settled with the burial of the snow-packer in the sliding canyons ...
— Tharon of Lost Valley • Vingie E. Roe
... accepted. Great parties have adopted it as their platform, and elections have been carried upon it. Its value as a support to the dignity and self-importance of local politicians was readily apprehended by them; and it was in perfect harmony with the tone of bluster which pervaded our politics. The thorough refutation which it always encountered, whenever it was seriously considered, never seemed to do its popularity any harm. In truth, mere vaporing hurt nobody, and caused no great alarm. But when the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 8, No. 46, August, 1861 • Various
... parlour where his wife was sitting, she excused herself to her conscience, for not telling him of the freedom she had taken, by thinking—It will do as well to tell him of it to-morrow: a few notes, out of such a parcel as he has in his desk locked up from me, can't signify; and he'll only bluster and bully when I do tell him of it; so let him find ...
— Tales & Novels, Vol. 2 • Maria Edgeworth
... antiquity in the Five Towns. No industrial development can ever rob it of its superiority in age, which makes it absolutely sure in its conceit. And the time will never come when the other towns—let them swell and bluster as they may—will not pronounce the name of Bursley as one pronounces the name of one's mother. Add to this that the Square was the centre of Bursley's retail trade (which scorned the staple as something wholesale, vulgar, and assuredly ...
— The Old Wives' Tale • Arnold Bennett
... for that staple, that their republic would be recognized and defended by those European powers. On the other hand, the Northern people did not believe that the South would dare to fight for slavery when it had 4,000,000 slaves exposed to the chances of war. They thought it to be all bluster, and hence paid little heed to the threat of secession or of war. Both sides sadly learned their mistake, ...
— A Brief History of the United States • Barnes & Co.
... Rabelais' spirit most obviously shows itself. His book is an orgy of words; they pour out helter-skelter, wildly, into swirling sentences and huge catalogues that, in serried columns, overflow the page. Not quite wildly, though; for, amid all the rush and bluster, there is a powerful underlying art. The rhythms of this extraordinary prose are long and complex, but they exist; and they are controlled with the absolute skill of ...
— Landmarks in French Literature • G. Lytton Strachey
... bewrays. The swan-down to feeling, The snow of the gaillin,[134] Thy limbs all excelling, Unite to amaze. The queen, I would name thee, Of maidenly muster; Thy stem is so seemly, So rich is its cluster Of members complete, Adroit at each feat, And thy temper so sweet, Without banning or bluster. My grief has press'd on Since the vision of Morag, As the heavy millstone On the cross-tree that bore it. In vain the world over, Seek her match may the rover; A shaft, thy poor ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... established; and his temper was under strict government. The fury of Glengarry, not being inflamed by any fresh provocation, rapidly abated. Indeed there were some who suspected that he had never been quite so pugnacious as he had affected to be, and that his bluster was meant only to keep up his own dignity in the eyes of his retainers. However this might be, the quarrel was composed; and the two chiefs met, with the outward show of civility, at the general's ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 3 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... Rose, as she always did in the shop, sat down upon a small cask, which Frederick placed for her, and which Reinhold carefully dusted. At Master Martin's express desire they again struck up the admirable song in which they had been so rudely interrupted by Conrad's bluster; but he went on with his work at the bench, quite still, and entirely wrapped up in his ...
— Weird Tales, Vol. II. • E. T. A. Hoffmann
... I began to bluster. I was a British subject and claimed to be treated with proper respect. I appealed to the British Consul; I insisted upon seeing him. When they laughed at me, saying that he would not interfere with the course of justice on behalf of such an unknown vagabond, I ...
— The Passenger from Calais • Arthur Griffiths
... fearful storm, the heavens seem As if they would vent themselves in streams of fire; So thick the darkness which usurps the day, That one might see the stars. The angry winds Bluster and howl like spirits loosed from hell. The firm earth trembles, and the aged elms Groaning, bow down their venerable tops. Yet this terrific tumult, o'er our heads, Which teacheth gentleness to savage beasts, So that they seek the shelter of their caves, ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... deliberate challenge and provocation to Ulster. It seemed probable that the First Lord of the Admiralty had been selected for the mission in preference to any other Minister precisely because he was Lord Randolph's son. All this bluster about "fight and be right" was traceable, so Liberal Ministers doubtless reasoned, to that unhappy speech of "Winston's father"; let Winston go over to the same place and explain his father away. If he obtained a hearing in the Ulster Hall in the company of Redmond, Devlin, ...
— Ulster's Stand For Union • Ronald McNeill
... to muster Here at the call of the old battle days: Cavalry clatter and cannon's hoarse bluster: All the wild whirl of the fight's broken maze: Clangor of bugle and flashing of sabre, Smoke-stifled flags and the howl of the shell, With earth for a rest place and death for a neighbor, And dreams of a charge and the ...
— Dreams and Days: Poems • George Parsons Lathrop
... bluster, Hymen. I've cornered you, and you know it. The flares in the offing yonder came from two preventive boats. Back-door and front I have you, as neat as a rat in a drain; so you may just turn that lantern of yours on the cargo, ...
— The Mayor of Troy • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... went on, but it has ceased to be a novel merit. Nothing would be easier than to show that the early Edinburgh articles were very far from perfect. Of Jeffrey we shall speak presently, and there is no doubt that Sydney at his best was, and is always, delightful. But the blundering bluster of Brougham, the solemn ineffectiveness of Horner (of whom I can never think without also thinking of Scott's delightful Shandean jest on him), the respectable erudition of the Scotch professors, cannot for one single moment be compared with the work which, in Jeffrey's own later ...
— Essays in English Literature, 1780-1860 • George Saintsbury
... the petition proceeded with at all risks, until delivered at the House of Commons. Fergus O'Connor dissuaded them from any collision with the authorities. In a speech full of bombast and egotism, he declared that he was personally marked out for slaughter by the authorities. Thus, after all the bluster of this great tribune, as his followers called him, he showed the white feather. He was not prepared, like Smith O'Brien, gallantly to go out, with his life in his hand, and verify, by exposing himself to every peril and penalty, the words which he uttered when it was safe to utter them. Mr. ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... Canadians knew at the time. The troublesome question was settled; the time-honored friendship of two great peoples had suffered no interruption; and Roosevelt had secured for his country its just due, without public parade or bluster, by ...
— Theodore Roosevelt and His Times - A Chronicle of the Progressive Movement; Volume 47 in The - Chronicles Of America Series • Harold Howland
... Then people say: "The Hereditary Forester is harder on the poor than the devil himself, but his wife and his girl, they are angels from heaven." And they say this so that I should hear it; and hear it I do. But I pretend not to notice it, and laugh in my sleeve; and to keep up appearances I bluster all the more.—It seems the guests are arriving. Robert, my wife, and my girl, my Mary—if I at some time—you understand me, Robert. Give me your hand. God is looking ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IX - Friedrich Hebbel and Otto Ludwig • Various
... and self-reliant, named his terms to Castellani—a half-interest in the business—and Castellani, swear and bully and bluster as he might, must accept. This made Sampey a rich man at once. Castellani, exceedingly gracious and friendly after the signing of the compact, proposed a quiet supper in his private apartments in celebration of the new arrangement, ...
— The Ape, the Idiot & Other People • W. C. Morrow
... his tones were firm, with no bluster nor bluff in them, "we came out here to find Tom Swift, and were going to find him! We have reason to believe he's here—at least, he started for here," he substituted, as he wished to make no statement he could not prove. ...
— Tom Swift and his War Tank - or, Doing his Bit for Uncle Sam • Victor Appleton
... gang-plank, as negroes do when wooding up on a Southern river; of shouting and swaggering Austrian customs officials, clad in gorgeous raiment, but smoking cheap cigars; of Servian gendarmes emulating the bluster and surpassing the rudeness of the Austrians; of Turks in transit from the Constantinople boat to the craft plying to Bosnian river-ports; of Hungarian peasants in white felt jackets embroidered with scarlet thread, or mayhap even ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, December 1878 • Various
... the war began Joffre has developed some of the qualities notable in our own General Grant. There is not a particle of show or bluster about him. He dresses as plainly as possible, talks little and seems to prefer solitude. But his will is imperious and he does not hesitate when anything is to be done, whether it is pleasant or otherwise. For his men he has the greatest consideration, but they say in France ...
— A Journey Through France in War Time • Joseph G. Butler, Jr.
... years that he was prepared to see a man who would intimidate him by his severity and awe him by the manifestation of his greatness. In fact, associating business success with his father's manners and methods, Allen had come to believe that force meant noise and bluster, and that firmness stood for an intolerance of discussion. But here, in the midst of his family, Robert Gorham displayed a side of his nature which Stephen Sanford had never seen; yet Allen was no less conscious of the man's power. The boy was more quick to ...
— The Lever - A Novel • William Dana Orcutt
... you prate, fool?" he questioned huskily, seeking to bluster it before the startled glances ...
— The Shame of Motley • Raphael Sabatini
... the vanishing of the hated wolverines. A crow lifted on rounded vans, marking their departure, and it was seen. A blackcock launched from a high tree with a whir and a bluster like an aeroplane, showing their course, and it was noted. An eagle climbed heavily and ponderously over the low curtain of the snow mist, pointing their way, and it was followed. All the wild, all the world, seemed to be against the ...
— The Way of the Wild • F. St. Mars
... I was in Whitney's head-quarters. There pandemonium reigned; all the cocksureness and bluster of the "machine" had vanished, and it was a horde of clamorous and excited men I found struggling round Towle and Whitney, who vainly sought to stay the panic. It was not disappointment at the governor's message that had so stirred these hardened practitioners ...
— Frenzied Finance - Vol. 1: The Crime of Amalgamated • Thomas W. Lawson
... you?" asked Bumpus, with a tremor in his voice that he tried in vain to conceal by a great show of assumed bluster. ...
— The, Boy Scouts on Sturgeon Island - or Marooned Among the Game-fish Poachers • Herbert Carter
... fool began to bluster, and attempted to deny this statement; but Lecoq opened the door, and Rose appeared in a most becoming costume. Paul now made no effort to continue his protestations, but throwing himself on his knees, in whining accents confessed the whole fraud and pleaded for mercy, promising ...
— The Champdoce Mystery • Emile Gaboriau
... submit to any insult. Lyons urged some action, or declaration (he did not know what), to correct this false impression[213]. Again, on the next day, May 21, the information in his official despatch was repeated in a private letter to Russell, but Lyons here interprets Seward's threats as mere bluster. Yet he is not absolutely sure of this, and in any case insists that the best preventative of war with the United States is to show that England is ready ...
— Great Britain and the American Civil War • Ephraim Douglass Adams
... apart from the others, resentful of the distrust that Taterleg had shown, but more than half of his courage and bluster taken away from him with his gun. He was swearing more volubly than ever to cover his other deficiencies; but he was a man to be feared only when he had his ...
— The Duke Of Chimney Butte • G. W. Ogden
... said Cleek, as he rose to his feet and shut a tight hand upon the collar of the manacled doctor; "got you, you dogs, and your little game is up. Oh, you needn't bluster, doctor; you needn't come the outraged innocence, Colonel. You'll, neither of you, bolster up the rascally claim of your worthy confederate, the Tackbun Claimant; and your game with the X-rays, your devil's trick of rotting away a man's arm ...
— Cleek, the Master Detective • Thomas W. Hanshew
... was visibly nervous. He was pale. His voice was neither strong nor clear. He appeared to be deeply affected by the epochal and awesome character of his task. His distinguished audience listened in profound silence as he stated America's case without bluster and without rancor. The burden of his address was a request that the House and Senate recognize that Germany had been making war on the United States and that they agree to his recommendations, which included a declaration that a state of ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume VI (of VIII) - History of the European War from Official Sources • Various
... horses to their wagons, and were quietly going about their business, when with a great whoop and hurrah, which frightened their horses and made them break loose from their wagons, a company of men came in sight, and with swagger and bluster, took possession of the polls, and proceeded to do the voting. Meantime whisky flowed like water, and the men, far gone in liquor, turned the place into a bedlam. In utter humiliation and disgust many of the squatters went home. Caleb May did not get into the neighborhood ...
— Personal Recollections of Pardee Butler • Pardee Butler
... Jack MacKenzie, with much brusque bluster to conceal his longings for the life he was too old to follow and many cynical injunctions about "skinning the skunk" and "knocking the head off anything that stood in my way" and "always profiting from the follies of other men"—"mind, ...
— Lords of the North • A. C. Laut
... Now, a different order of things prevailed. Boulton was simply unendurable. His capacity was barely such as to enable him to discharge his official functions, and what he lacked in ability he made up for in bluster. He had an abominable temper, and a haughty, overbearing manner. He was always committing blunders which he refused to acknowledge, and he roared and bullied his way through one complication after another in a fashion ...
— The Story of the Upper Canada Rebellion, Volume 1 • John Charles Dent
... something. He was a pitiful sight as he rose and confronted Augusta Goold. There were blotches of purple red and spaces of pallor on his face; his hands twisted together; a sweat had broken out from his neck, and made his collar limp. His words were a stammering mixture of bluster and appeal. ...
— Hyacinth - 1906 • George A. Birmingham
... from being the pugnacious person whom many of his later critics insisted that he was. Having given ample proof to the frontiersmen that he had no fear, he resolutely kept the peace with them, and they had no desire to break peace with him. Bluster and swagger were foreign to his nature, and he loathed a bully as much as a coward. If we had not already had the record of his. three years in the Legislature, in which he surprised his friends by his wonderful ...
— Theodore Roosevelt; An Intimate Biography, • William Roscoe Thayer
... fact that Marian's car had disappeared. Doubtless she had gone in ignorance of this outrage, perhaps thinking him accosted by a chance acquaintance. At all events, she was gone, and there was now nothing to be gained from an attempt to bluster the detective down, but deeper shame and the scorn of ...
— The Day of Days - An Extravaganza • Louis Joseph Vance
... her. Babbitt had so strong an impulse to go to Paul that he could feel his body uncoiling, his shoulders moving, but he felt, desperately, that he must be diplomatic, and not till he saw Paul paying the check did he bluster to the piano-salesman, "By golly-friend of mine over there—'scuse me ...
— Babbitt • Sinclair Lewis
... treaty would be ratified only on several conditions, one of which was that the Mobile Act should be revoked. Pinckney then threw discretion to the winds and announced that he would ask for his passports; but his bluster did not change Spanish policy, and he dared not carry out ...
— Jefferson and his Colleagues - A Chronicle of the Virginia Dynasty, Volume 15 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Allen Johnson
... made it tolerable, would have been about it still. A sicker man than Urquhart, who made a hard death for himself, would have given up the battle, thrown himself at James's feet and asked no quarter. Urquhart was not so far gone as that; a little bluster remained. He did it badly. He didn't mean to be brutal; he meant to be honest; but it sounded brutal, and ...
— Love and Lucy • Maurice Henry Hewlett
... now, I have knowed it to storm, and storm hard, after this time uh year. But comin' the way she did last fall, 'n' all this here wind 'n' bluster 'n' snowin' on the Zandias and never comin' no further down, I calc'late the chances is slim, boy—'n' gittin' slimmer every day, now I'm ...
— The Phantom Herd • B. M. Bower
... in that whirling surge, Shot sheer to their dismal doom: Keel and mast only did ever emerge, Shattered, from out the all-gulping tomb!— Like the bluster of tempest, clearer and clearer, Comes its roaring ...
— Rampolli • George MacDonald
... if you can. I'll go on to the baker's. We'll meet again opposite the church. If I'm not there in twenty minutes go back without me; I'll wait that long for you. Walk in as if you owned the shanty. There's nothing starts suspicion as quick as looking frightened. Bluster a bit if they look crooked at you, and ...
— The Northern Iron - 1907 • George A. Birmingham
... in politics: where the people is most closely restrained, there it gives the greatest shocks to peace and order; therefore would I say to all kings, let your demagogues lead crowds, lest they lead armies; let them bluster, lest they massacre; a little turbulence is, as it were, the rainbow of the state; it shows indeed that there is a passing shower; but it is a pledge that there shall ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 1 (of 4) - Contibutions to Knight's Quarterly Magazine] • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... of those Americans who insist at all times and under all circumstances that he is as good as any man, simply because in his heart of hearts he knows that he is not, but hopes by this bluster to deceive the world. On the contrary, he was a firm advocate of an aristocratic form of government, and did not hesitate to say that he considered the Declaration of Independence, wherein it refers to the absolute equality of man, as ...
— L. P. M. - The End of the Great War • J. Stewart Barney
... to be a mighty meek sort of creature. And though I should like it in him hereafter perhaps, yet I can't help despising him a little in my heart for it now. I believe, my dear, we all love your blustering fellows best; could we but direct the bluster, and bid it roar when ...
— Clarissa, Volume 2 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... "Don't bluster, son, or I shall grow peevish," Hood replied tolerantly. "At the present moment I feel like taking a walk under the mystical May stars. The night invites the soul to meditation; the stars may have the answer to all our perplexities. Stop fretting about your bonds and your friend ...
— The Madness of May • Meredith Nicholson
... while the medieval romances about the siege of Troy ascribe to Pandarus that shameful traffic out of which his name has passed into the words 'to pander' and 'pandarism.' 'Rodomontade' is from Rodomonte, a hero of Boiardo; who yet, it must be owned, does not bluster and boast, as the word founded on his name seems to imply; adopted by Ariosto, it was by him changed into Rodamonte. 'Thrasonical' is from Thraso, the braggart of Roman comedy. Cervantes has given us 'quixotic'; ...
— On the Study of Words • Richard C Trench
... thoughts, therefore, aroused my sensitive nature, and a violent outburst of temper was the result. I did not mind being called an Apeman so much, but hated the idea of being treated like one, so working myself into a passion I severely censured her, and with much bluster and many gestures endeavored to impress upon her mind how much superior I was to what she had imagined. It was some time before my anger abated, and then I noticed that she appeared quite unmoved by my wrath but ...
— Born Again • Alfred Lawson
... the hat which had been knocked from his head. There was only one instinct or desire in his being—the instinct which drives the wounded rat back to its hole to die, the instinct of self-preservation working in its meanest range. His swagger and bluster had been hopelessly crushed out of him by the vigour of Palmer Billy's attack; and to have been, as he considered, twice deserted by his own comrades, rendered his subjugation ...
— Colonial Born - A tale of the Queensland bush • G. Firth Scott
... open-mouthed—amazed. How did she know all this? It made strange music in his ears, for, in spite of all his bluster, he hungered for praise; for applause. Pearl's words fell like a ...
— Purple Springs • Nellie L. McClung
... band had reached the top of the Rue de la Banne, Macquart, who had stationed himself at the rear, detained four of his companions, big fellows who were not over-burdened with brains and whom he swayed by his tavern bluster. He easily persuaded them that the enemies of the Republic must be arrested immediately if they wished to prevent the greatest calamities. The truth was that he feared Pierre might escape him in the midst of the confusion ...
— The Fortune of the Rougons • Emile Zola
... She is bankrupt. No nation will assist her. A civilized nation would be ashamed to take her hand, to be her friend. She has not the power to put down the rebellion in Cuba. How then can she hope to conquer this country? She is full of brag and bluster. Of course she will play her hand for all it is worth, so far as talk goes. She will double her fists and make motions. She will assume the attitude of war, but she will never fight. Should she commence hostilities, the war would be short. She would lose her navy. The little commerce she has ...
— The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Volume VIII. - Interviews • Robert Green Ingersoll
... Stanislaus was going to give him his long-due payment, and he had no stomach to face the reckoning. He had not noticed before how wiry and strong Stanislaus looked. But when he saw that the boy made no movement, only spoke in that quiet voice, he plucked up a little courage. He began to bluster ...
— For Greater Things: The story of Saint Stanislaus Kostka • William T. Kane, S.J.
... a certain amount of bluster on the part of two, the cowboys dropped their guns, and Delmar ...
— The Eagle's Heart • Hamlin Garland
... Whitecraft had now gained a complete ascendancy over the disposition and passions of her father. The latter, like many another country squire—especially of that day—when his word and will were law to his tenants and dependants, was a very great man indeed, when dealing with them. He could bluster and threaten, and even carry his threats into execution with a confident swagger that had more of magisterial pride and the pomp of property in it, than a sense of either light or justice. But, on ...
— Willy Reilly - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... Joseph Warton.[38] The distrust was not without ground. The danger that the method of Longinus in the hands of ungifted writers would become a cloak for critical ignorance and degenerate into empty bluster was already apparent.[39] Only rarely was there a reader who could distinguish between the false and the true application of the method. Gibbon did it in a passage which impressed itself upon the younger critics of Hazlitt's generation. "I was acquainted only with ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin |
